Dc kaleidoscope12/12/2023 ![]() Her compositions number more than fifty pieces, and range from classical models to the most modern, syncopated dance music’. ![]() She received an excellent musical training from some of the best teachers of America and Europe, among them Busoni and Egon Petri in Berlin, where she was studying when the Great War began. From it we learn that Edna Bentz (the name under which her nine or so piano rolls were published) ‘has won success both in recitals of classical and romantic music and in the vaudeville field. Apart from this snippet, a Duo-Art catalogue of about 1927 provides the sole source of information on the obscure composer of this charming work. Mr Hamelin has been waiting to share these forgotten gems with fellow pianophiles for many years, and in the process offers an illuminating vade mecum of the piano in the twentieth century.Įdna Bentz Woods was an American composer and pianist married to an executive of the Aeolian Company, W Creary Woods. Thus, though a number of the composers are undeniably ‘minor’ figures in the great scheme of things, their love, knowledge and understanding of the piano, as illustrated here, is everywhere manifested at the highest level. However, mere obscurity is far from the main arbiter of choice for this selection all nineteen works have two important qualities in common: each has the stamp of an unmistakable and individual voice, and each was written by a pianist-composer. The composers of most of the works will be known only to piano aficionados. ![]() Some have never appeared on disc before others have not been heard in public for years. All, save two, were composed in the last century. This collection of twenty piano miniatures has been selected by Marc-André Hamelin from a repertoire that is as far-reaching and comprehensive as that of any living pianist. Marc-André himself is represented by his outrageously complex take on Liszt's La Campanella and by his pastiche of a Scarlatti sonata, which is very silly indeed! But it's not all bravura, our pianist has also made an arrangement of the well known Adagio from Glazunov's The Seasons which may bring a tear to the eye, as may the nostalgia of Alt Wein. Look out for the Gimpel paraphrase on a tune known in the US as The Marines Hymn, this is in the tradition of Horowitz at his most brilliant then there's our title track Kaleidoscop, written and made famous by the great pianist Joseph Hofmann, it was also much championed by Cherkassky and is another tour de force. All are guaranteed to make the listener either gasp in astonishment or swoon. Some are fairly well known such as the Rachmaninov and Godowsky but most are gems that have been long forgotten or, in the case of Marc's own studies, or the Kapustin, are new additions to the encore tradition. The CD is a collection of the kind of wild and wacky encores that so typify Marc-André's recitals. ![]() To all his many fans this disc is going to be 'The Best Marc-André Hamelin Album Ever' or perhaps 'The Ultimate Marc-André Album'. ![]()
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